“I Used To Know Her Well”

Updated: 2 days ago.

© 2018 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

By Anna Tchernikov

It got you by the throat when you looked at it. The strong arms of the house, wide oak tree

out front, many beating quiet hearts inside. Habitual decomposition made the air sharp, fresh, the

small dry leaf bodies laying about the street to be blown away. In the engraving atop the entrance,

‘nineteen-eleven’ pierced the smooth, stone, thin ovals and lines coming together through a smattering of moss. I’d been there a few times.

Columns on either side — this was an old nest. Everyone’s pomade mixed with deodorant,

shampoo, and tooth paste in the bathroom. Deep ochre perfume bottles reeked amazingly. Floss and

hair curled out from the seashell sink, the mirror scratched at the edges, dents in the glass framing each eager, beautiful face in the morning against specks of floating dust. Legs on floorboards tearing the silence of the night wide open.

It was almost every beautiful face, almost… In a gallery of photographs, mementos from

summer trips strewn about the kitchen under magnets from different regions (“Virginia!” “Glover’s

For Lovers,” “Ivory University Mama,”) with leftovers from everyone’s turn cooking dinner, weekend

hosting, candles here and there burned out, wax solid by the morning, you never saw his face

anywhere. That’s what I remember, anyway, and I visited that place often. How much do you want to

know?

The nick-names, yes. S. Mahler, Stye Mahler, Small Stye Mahler. He never emptied the ash tray

which he would leave on the coffee table in front of the television, never stopped smoking inside. It

made the couch cushions, everything deep velvet and preserved from decades of other lives, meet a

premature end, the smoke an agent of decay. It always felt to me as though his mess was a trophy.

I used to know her really well, you know that? I was there when she was putting her tracksuit

on. She borrowed my silver kitten heels, because Viv’s magnificent. And the miniature handbag, and

the earrings which dangled, beautiful metal vines against her dark hair. Yes, that’s Vivian, but we say

Viv. She drove us over there. It was for a dinner. Friend of a friend.

Night. Submerged in tar. No automatic anything on the doorstep. Her little manicured hand

reaches out to use the brass knocker attached to the open maw of the golden lion. Three raps. Its teeth and tongue poised in icy roar. The door swings open (claws scraping) and everything dances. That loud song, heads turn toward us (beautiful flowers of the night) as we walk the path of fire. The dim hallway swallows us whole. Viv shines bright.

I, swept away into sea of voices, separate from Viv. Now, I can only tell you fragments.

Someone asked if that guy over there was their landlord. Pale-faced count perched at edge of

red sofa. There was laughter. Happiness a bright moat around the fortress of Stye. Was it me or Viv

who held back a scream? I guess she was a storm-chaser. Viv was. Always polite.

The count only pursed his dry lips. That something dull behind the eyes, pregnant with

frostbite. Wrapped in a dark blue housecoat, putting out a cigarette in the ashtray, coughing, a whisky bottle half-empty at his side. Roasted meat and steamed vegetables on the table, an untouched cake, silver cutlery and napkins strewn about, his gaunt face reflected out from the water glass…

A thunderclap resounded.

She saw him tracing lines on the map, progressing from Mexico to Brazil. She could think of

nothing to say.

“Hola,” she replied, trying to smile.

His finger stilled. “I don’t understand,” he intoned.

“Hello. I don’t think we know each other, you live with everyone here, right?” Her voice

pitched a note higher.

“They all live with me,” he offered. A bland statement, at that.

Her next question died on her tongue. In his eyes she only saw herself, her own dismay. Why

had she tried? Symbols on his skin became visible for a moment.

Another lightning flash.

Ink crawling on his flesh, crosses and circles, stars, gothic lettering, flashing silver and black,

visions of knights on horses, dancing on his thin body. He looked thirty, but he was closer to nineteen.

She felt her flesh was being eaten.

“Could you go to the liquor store for us?” she tried. “You’re old— I mean, you look older.”

I remember…She said something else, unintelligible, sweet. I didn’t hear.

He rose. His shadow split the face of Viv in half. I turn my head too late, only to see glittery

kitten heels follow him into the dim.

Stye’s room. A cloth and paper spider-web. He re-emerged into the hallway,

shadow-puppets of knights with crosses, gothic lettering, the word—UNITY—in

black, bold lettering, whispering, sharpening its points, Viv could not stop seeing the

ink marks, half there, half not, piercing through his clothing, whispering, dancing, the

devil drawn by human hand. A shining sword pointed from his back, or bicep, or rib,

all his torso looked to be a puzzle falling apart and coming back together, in the

shadow…

He went out into the night. Suddenly, too good of a sport.

She stood in that hall, kitten heels pulling her backwards each time she tried to

make a step forward, into the living room. The hall narrowed, until the bright, full

room seemed a small orange triangle from where she stood. She felt herself, pulled by

her legs, walking backwards into that nest-within-a-nest. Surrounded by pictures of

knights on horses, bible verses, suffocating in smoke smell, trapped in mess, door shut.

She had seen that symbol before. Why did he have it on his wall?

I only remember having an amazing time. The house alive, broken fuses lighting lamps,

warmth. He returned, in suit, laughing girlish laugh, almost Viv’s laugh, cheeks ruddy, alive for the

first time, re-animated. He told jokes like hers.